Prepositions don't get much respect. Nouns, verbs, adjectives... those are the
words we usually pay attention to. Who has ever looked up in a thesaurus to
find a better preposition? Who has complimented an author on his choice of
prepositions? They might as well be invisible.

Yet prepositions are some of the most important parts of the sentence. They
work to connect various parts. And if you have any doubt about the role or
importance of these hard-working nuts and bolts of a language, ask anyone
who has tried to learn a new language. Prepositions are among the hardest
to master.

Literally speaking, a preposition is something that is positioned before a noun.
These are little words, such as in, to, of, up, for, etc., though they are not
always a single syllable. There are some pretty long ones: amongst, concerning,
notwithstanding. And there are some fancy prepositions (contra, cum, a la,
and so on). This week we'll see some of the uncommon prepositions, words
that tell the nouns: "Me first!"

A note about ending a sentence with a preposition. Some believe there's
something wrong with that. It's a myth. One can find sentences ending with
preps in the lines of some of the finest writers in history: Chaucer, Swift,
Kipling, Shakespeare and so on. "We are such stuff as dreams are made on" --
Try rephrasing that line from The Tempest. See what inelegant glob results.
This canard about no-prepositions-at-the-end belongs in the same dustbin as
"Thou shalt not split an infinitive."
So the next time people fault you for ending a sentence with a preposition,
ask them: "What are you talking about?"

pace

PRONUNCIATION:

(PAY-see, PAH-chay, PAH-kay)

MEANING:

With due respect to. (used to express polite disagreement)

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin pace (in peace), from pax (peace). Ultimately from the
Indo-European root pag-/pak- (to fasten) that is also the source
of peace, pacify, pact, travel, compact, pagan, and peasant.

USAGE:

"The movie Scoop (pace my friend and occasional critical contributor to
this page who reviewed it favorably) is merely another mark of Woody
Allen's descent into insubstantiality."
Steffen Silvis; Plenty Up His Sleeve; The Prague Post (Czech Republic);
Jan 10, 2007.